The Grapenut Tile
by quintilis
Summary: In which a game of Pai Sho turns into philosophical musing, Sokka pulls ahead at last, and turtle-ducks cause a ruckus. Death isn't so bad when everyone you know has already beat you to the punch, Zuko thinks.


**category:** Avatar the Last Airbender

**disclaimer: **I don't own it.

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Sokka shifted in his chair with two loud creaks: one of dry wood, and one of brittle bones. He picked up his moose-lion tile and clicked it over four spots, gradually, hesitantly.

Across from him, Zuko leaned forward and moved one of his own pieces on top of Sokka's moose-lion. "Cover," he said quietly as let his hands fall onto his lap again.

"This is getting ridiculous," Sokka drummed his fingers on the table and assessed the situation. Zuko had all but 3 of his pieces covered and unable to move. His eyes drifted to the blue locust, the armadillo bear, and the grapenut, the last of his team to survive this long. "How do you manage to ruin every plan I carefully lay out?"

"I've played my fair share of Pai Sho, and more," There was a momentary gruffness in his voice that tried to mask the sorrow of kindly uncles and the ashes of cremation.

They both were quiet for a moment, but only a moment. After all, Sokka couldn't keep his mouth closed for too long. It had been sixty years since the war, and still he hadn't lost his fervor or habit of speaking without thinking or his _ideas_.

"I miss Iroh's tea," he piped up, never one for tact.

The fire in Zuko's eyes had died over the years, in contrast. Each year, each death, took away a part of the burning vivacity dancing within him. The Fire Lord there was a mere shell of what he had been. "I miss it too." His pale, sunken hand clenched once and then relaxed. "I miss everyone."

Sokka looked to the sky and breathed out slowly. They both had lost everyone they knew, everyone that mattered even the tiniest bit. The turtle-ducks making a ruckus over nothing seemed to be from another world. How odd to see something so light-hearted when a dark mood had fallen upon them.

The memory of a dozen deaths fell upon them, unbidden. In consensus, they agreed to talk about it. Better to wallow in misery together, each thought, then to chase away the shadows together.

"I think Ty Lee was the first to go," Sokka started. "Other than my grandparents, I mean. All of us expected that. But it was downright chilling to have someone our age die so young."

"Unbelievable," Zuko's fingernails dug into his palm as he remembered a girl too cheerful and innocent to have ever meant anyone harm. The spirits wanted her with them, he had told Mai as she spent a month in their room with curtains pulled shut. She was too good for anyone to let pass by.

"And then your uncle," Sokka was careful not to mention the painful last days of Iroh's life. They had all crowded around his sickbed, and when he finally went, it had punctured all of their hearts as one.

"It's okay, though," Zuko seemed more peaceful than usually when the topic of Iroh came up. "It's taken me decades to understand that he's in a better place. I'm sure wherever he is now, it's better than what we gave him." He picked up the white lotus tile from the Pai Sho board and rubbed at its carving. "He deserved it."

They spent the afternoon running through all their friends: the painful childbirth that had taken Suki, the sickness that had wiped out both Aang and Katara together, the postpartum weakness that had led Mai to live her final, gray days half there and half not. They laughed, admittedly bitterly, at the things their wives had done for their children.

"And they've all grown up to be horrible!" Zuko didn't care anymore that his kids weren't what he'd hoped them to become. Life had become repetitive and endless after Mai died. He had five grandchildren, and that was enough. He didn't need the love of a son and daughter after all he'd been through.

Sokka smiled sadly. His bloodline had ended with the death of Suki and the baby. He had poured his heart and soul into Gyatso then, his nephew, and Aang and Katara's only child. Gyatso was a man now, a real Airbender like his father. Time passed as quickly as shells drifting in and out of seafoam with the changing of the tides.

He collected himself, noticing that Zuko had run out of things to say. "Toph went last, didn't she?"

They both took the chance to laugh genuinely. "She stayed as solid as any rock right till the end," Zuko said.

They lapsed into silence again, but it was comfortable now with the burden of death and blackness gone from above their shoulders. Time had passed, and wounds had closed with the changing of seasons and years. It was easy to discuss dying and loved ones after grieving feelings had been pushed away and buried under layers of day-to-day business.

"I'm not scared of dying, Zuko," Sokka said, at last speaking after an hour of quiet musing. "There's nothing left to lose, and I think I'll meet everyone again as I leave this place already."

"You think so?" Zuko's eyes had turned gray with dust and age, but sometimes there was a spark of gold deep in there. "I want to see our friends again, too." He turned to Sokka. "But I just don't want to be alone: the last one to go."

Sokka felt a similar string in his heart plucked as Zuko voiced the depressing thought he'd had seven years ago, when he realized that it was just the two of them left. But there was a frightened, worried look in Zuko's eyes that told him that his friend didn't want sympathy. Zuko needed reassurance now, and more than anything, to be told that he would not be alone.

"Are you kidding me?" Sokka leaned back into his chair and set his eyes on his grapenut tile, and tried to return the brightness of youth and ignorance to his voice. "Do you think I'm going to let some spoiled Fire Nation brat outlive me?"

Sokka met Zuko's suddenly warm smile with one of his own, and then, grinning, moved his tile onto Zuko's koi fish piece. "Cover."

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**notes:** Almost gave it a sad ending, but didn't.


End file.
